Monster El Nino Turns Typhoon Eyes Toward Arctic

What does a Monster El Nino look like? In two words — climate change. And by the end of August climate change’s Monster El Nino may have spawned two strong tropical cyclones and hurled their powerful remnant systems into the Arctic.

(Our Monster El Nino and three hot blobs — one off California, one off the Pacific Northwest, and one in the Bering and Chukchi — just keep getting hotter and hotter. The extremity of heat covering this section of the Pacific Ocean is simply extraordinary. And the fact that it keeps building may have some serious impacts on Pacific, Arctic, and North American weather patterns. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Unlike typical El Ninos, the high heat anomalies are not isolated to a band along the Equator. They extend upward across a vast pool that encompasses practically all of the Northeastern and North-Central Pacific. All of the Bering Sea and a chunk of the Arctic Ocean as well. It’s as if the typical El Nino heat has developed a great chimney that runs over thousands of miles from Equator to Arctic. One that encompasses millions of square miles of much warmer than normal ocean surface. An entire zone that, for the ocean, is a blistering 1-5 degrees Celsius hotter than ‘normal.’

The Warming World’s Intense El Ninos’ Dance With Polar Amplification

Scientists have long warned us about this. Warned us that increasing global temperatures through ongoing fossil fuel burning could greatly amplify the intensity and the frequency of strong El Nino events. A recent paper published in Nature has continued this line of research finding that, under human-forced global warming, the frequency of strong El Ninos is doubled. And, right on queue, the 2014-2016 El Nino is shaping up to be one of the nastiest, if not the nastiest such event we’ve yet experienced.

But it’s not just a question of the intensity of heat boiling out of the Equatorial Pacific. It’s also a question of how a strong El Nino behaves in a world that has been forced to warm by 1 degree Celsius. According to Dr. Jennifer Francis, a significant portion of that extra heat has tended to focus in the Arctic. And this extra Arctic heat has, among other things, gone to work weakening the Jet Stream. In some regions, as we see today over the entire Northeastern Pacific, the tendency has been for powerful high amplitude ridges to form. The ridges often extend all the way into the Arctic — developing pathways for yet more heat to hit the high polar zones.

Like El Nino, the ridge over the Northeastern Pacific is involved in an ocean-atmosphere dance. It’s a dance that includes widespread and abnormally warm water (see hot blob strengthens). And it’s a dance that includes the powerful impact of a Monster El Nino stalking the equatorial zones.

El Nino Hurls Twin Typhoons at the Arctic

Last week, this atmospheric dance included the formation of two tropical cyclones. Feeding off the powerful convection rising up over the Equatorial Pacific, these massive cyclones gathered intensity from the easterlies rushing in to feed the El Nino. They steamed north and westward. By today, Typhoon Goni was threatening the Philippines and Taiwan with 125 mph sustained winds. Meanwhile, Super Typhoon Atsani’s 150 mph sustained winds were tearing through Pacific Ocean waters east of Guam.

(GFS model forecast graphically displayed by Earth Nullschool finds typhoons Goni and Atsani running into wall of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge by Tuesday. It’s an atmospheric heat bleed from El Nino to Arctic that, according to long range forecasts, has a risk of carrying these strong storms with it. Image source: Earth Nullschool.)

Over the next few days, the typhoons are expected to turn north and eastward. Goni is predicted to skirt the Philippines, Taiwan and Japan. Atsani is expected to remain over open waters to the east of Japan. Both are heading toward the hot, northward moving airs on the backside of the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge.

Currently, the Ridge is positioned over the Northeastern Pacific Ocean hot pool just south and east of the Aleutians. It’s a strong and very deep high pressure system that’s expected to maintain in the range of 1035 to 1040 mb over the coming days. It’s dredging up the hot El Nino airs of the Equatorial Pacific and flinging them all the way to the Arctic Ocean.

Atsani is expected to plow into the back of this atmospheric wall of hot airs and to then follow the warm flow northward — approaching the Bering Sea edge by next Thursday as a powerful 960 to 970 mb extra-tropical low with Goni’s remnants following in its wake.

(Forecast sea level pressure map for Thursday, August 27th show Atsani’s powerful remnants on a track for the Bering Sea and Alaska or the Arctic Ocean. Image source: Climate Reanalyzer.)

If Atsani’s remnants enter the Bering as predicted, it will then either track through Alaska or enter the southern Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. At that point, the strength and disposition of the Arctic high will determine its final path. If the high recedes closer to Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago, Atsani’s extratropical system could be projected into the Arctic Ocean proper as a late season cyclone threatening the sea ice. If the Arctic high is more centrally located, Atsani’s remnants would plow down into the facing trough over Western and Central Canada — bringing with it some very stormy weather.

Meanwhile, for the Arctic, the risk of powerful storms plowing through weak, late season ice is looking a little bit less like an outlier event and more and more like a possibility for end August. So we’ll have to keep a close watch on Atsani, Goni, the RRR and the Arctic High.

wili

By their nature, elephants in rooms are regularly ignored. And this one will continue to be mostly ignored by most of the MSM for a while, if recent history is any indication. All they have to do is neglect even mentioning major events where they can, and then completely avoid connecting any dots or even mentioning GW when the event is too huge or too well known already to leave completely off their pages.

But we should indeed celebrate and cheer on the exceptions–WaPo in the US, as you mentioned, and even more so the Guardian in the UK.

(Thanks for continuing to post, by the way, and for the handy link. You will find that if you try to post more than one link per post, it will get blocked at least temporarily. So it’s best to parcel them out.)
Best,
wili

Suzanne

Thanks Wili for the “heads up” on posting rules…I am new to this contributing and commenting stuff…. I am much more at ease as a “lurker”, but am feeling a bit more confident here, as I see how much you all look out for one another…without judgement. 🙂

“…and then completely avoid connecting any dots…” Exactly, Wili. The mainstream media’s top stories are about climate change almost daily, they just never mention it. Record fires, droughts, floods, heat, etc. It all makes headlines and is reported on daily, but it will NEVER be pointed out that this is exactly what climatologists told us we would experience…three decades ago. It makes my head want to explode!

If we have a 970 or stronger low of this size running into the ice, my opinion is that it would take a huge chunk out. More likely pushing the 2007 or 2011 line. It would take a hell of a hit to beat 2012 at this point. Probably close to an outlier event required for that.

The issues for me are the potential for an extended melt season and this storm track that keeps angling north. It’s something we need to watch.

wili

That’s pretty much my view. But some thickness maps show a huge swath on the Atlantic side that is only a meter thick or so. If Danny or the next storm that comes along takes a sharp right (as did Sandy) and ends up all the way up on that side of the ice sheet bringing a lot of rain…who knows??

And, I also should mention that NASAs values for the 1997-1998 event shows that for the period September 1997 to July 1998 all months except from March 1998 smashed their previous records. The question shouldn’t be whether 2015 will be the warmest year on record or not but just how much we’ll smash the record with. Another question is whether we’ll get a month beating the average with more than 1C above normal until El Niño fades.

Good points, LAM. May want to consider that we’re about where we were in 1997 right now. The implication being that 2016 could also be a record breaking hot year. 2015 is a lock on record heat. And probably by a decent margin over 2014. The question now is — are we setting up for three years of record heat in a row?

wili

We’re at 4th lowest on record — behind or just behind 2011 and 2007 in all the major measures NSIDC, JAXA and CT (And when I said measures before, I assumed it was understood I was talking about both area and extent. Apparently I should have been clearer.). As I noted to Wili, a large cyclone is more likely to push past those lines than to threaten 2012. At this stage of the game, such an event (breaking past 2012) looks unlikely, but not impossible.

Given your comment, I think you should recognize that I raised this possibility last week and am currently tracking it now. And it’s certainly not a lock that we get a powerful storm in the Arctic. Though that’s a risk at this time when looking at the long range.

As I told Wili, I’ll have a better idea RE conditions as we get closer in.

Bill H

Fair enough. Sometimes I think I use too much short hand in comments. So my apologies if I wasn’t clear.

In any case, it’s an interesting situation. But one that also includes some potential unfortunate outcomes. The summer El Niño feedback is strong and the hot blob + RRR just keeps digging deeper and deeper.

redskylite

From: Paul Falkowski, scientist and author who works on energy, climate and how humans have influenced our planet. – care of Huffington Post

Taking the Oxygen Out of the Room

We just dump the gas into the atmosphere — freely. And it freely absorbs infrared radiation from the Sun and makes this planet warm. The more we dump, the warmer the planet. That is physics. You don’t get to vote on whether that is true or not. If you don’t believe in physics — try living on Venus, where the carbon dioxide levels are so high that lead will melt on the surface of the planet.
We know how to take it out of the atmosphere — but it’s expensive.

PlazaRed

Once temps over +2/C occur in the 3,4 Nino area then its uncharted waters.
There is probably nowhere else for the typhoons to go other than to end up in the Arctic. Or at least mainly in that direction.
I think it was 2011 when a lot of the Atlantic hurricanes went in the direction of Greenland.
The remains of the ice in a lot of the Arctic is probably not much more than a mass of floating slush and looking at it closely on satellite photos it seems to be made up of various sized blocks of floating ice, rather than a mass.
The only way to know what is going to happen with this season and El Nino, is unfortunately experience it, then re write the causes and effects of Arctic ice melt.

Meanwhile at the other extreme of the world the Antarctic ice build up has stopped and may not restart with much vigour. I find this a fascinating subject and it receives almost zero reporting being lost at the far ends of the southern hemisphere.

Thank you for consolidating so much information into such a small space.

labmonkey2

PlazaRed

Its not really how hot this Nino gets, so much as the effects its going to have with all the other players on the board, or rather in the Pacific.
That hot blob in the Gulf of Alaska is not going to go away.
Rain may not fall in sufficient quantities in California.
Meanwhile on the Spanish national news tonight, they were saying that the sea levels in the Mediterranean sea may rise by 2 meters (6.5 feet) with global warming. I’ve never heard them say anything like that before, so they must be gearing up to something especially considering all their tourist industry based on sunshine and beaches; as long as there still are beaches of course.
They even had a word for Cadiz which is just above sea level surrounded by sea, they said 2 meters there as well!

PlazaRed….are you in Spain right now? It’s my favorite/adopted country since the early 90s….It was by following its news over the years where the desertification of its south and western areas were/still are creeping up north and east, respectively, and it being attributed to CC that stands out in my memory re: the early signs that I saw first hand….

You probably know that El Hierro en las canarias is aiming at 100% renewables. They secured the funding from Madrid just before the collapse in ’08.

PlazaRed

Maria,
I have lived in Spain for over 20 years but originally I come from the Manchester area of England.
The situation with El Hierro is an interesting one and we never seem to hear anything about it, I only came across it via an obscure news article last year.
We do have to bear in mind that El Hierro is a very small island and can at this stage be like considering a bathtub of water in a very large dam by comparison. At least it is a situation!
Still having said that they will still be using powered transport, ships and planes during their daily lifestyles, so we can consider their renewable quest as partially 100% depending on how you see it.
I think a lot of the desertification here is being expanded by marginal farming, although the Murcia/Valencia areas are very dry now after several years of low rainfall.

Thanks, PlazaRed…when I first heard about it almost 10 years ago I was pretty orgullosa(proud) of Spain for trying to make El Hierro a test laboratory of sorts for their ideas, allow creativity to flow. The crash of ’08 had long-ranging negative consequences, unfortunately. Ya, I hear that Murcia/Valencia are suffering a lot…I hear that even Galicia is drier.

danabanana

The recent Spanish governments were not interested in renewables or in doing anything to protect the environment. Pine beetle causing havoc, Picudo beetle causing havoc, Asian Tiger Mosquito causing havoc, Caracol Manzana, etc, etc. They put money before environment and there you have now the consequences.

I come from a village by the east coast near Valencia which has sandy beaches and for a good 10 years I have repeatedly said to my friends over there that those sandy beaches will be gone in about 50 years… they laughed.

Indeed they did do a lot re: wind. As we all know it’s been a politico-economic-cultural state over there. I love Spain and I hope they can move forward….my last trip there was in ’11 and emotional depression of this normally vibrant people cloaked the country. Heartbreaking. There’s more optimism now, though.

Eventually one typhoon’s remants will come into Canada, travel through the United States, and regenerates its tropical cyclone characteristics in the Gulf or out in the Atlantic.

The $64,000 question will be: do the meteorologists at the NHC then call it a hurricane under a new name, or a typhoon under the old? (Remember Hurricane Ivan’s remnants did a loup-du-loup and reorganized as Tropical Storm Ivan in the GoM.)

redskylite

Following the article on sea-lion spasms due to toxic algae,there is a strong possibility it is also affecting whales, need to keep an eye on this.

30 whales have died off the coast of Alaska this year, and we’re not sure why

The leading theory is harmful algal blooms that might be aversely affecting whale populations in the area, according to NOAA scientists. Algal blooms may be producing biotoxins in the western Gulf of Alaska and along the contiguous west coast of the United States, Teri Rowles, NOAA Fisheries’ marine mammal health and stranding response coordinator, said.

“We’re monitoring that and mortalities and the presence of blooms and the biotoxins in prey and in seafood and keeping track of that as we look into this investigation,” Rowles added during a teleconference call on Thursday.

redskylite

Vital announcement by NASA, the latest on sea-level rise, hope all the latest discoveries are taken into account as the IPCC estimate seems very conservative.

NASA experts will present an up-to-date global outlook on current conditions and future projections of sea level rise.

From fieldwork on the Greenland ice sheet this summer, to new satellite views of sea level changes around the world, NASA’s “Rising Seas” events will provide the latest assessment of scientific understanding of this global environmental issue.

Abel Adamski

Interesting article on a new reporthttp://www.sciencecodex.com/greenhouse_gases_caused_glacial_retreat_during_last_ice_age-163855
“A recalculation of the dates at which boulders were uncovered by melting glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age has conclusively shown that the glacial retreat was due to rising levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, as opposed to other types of forces.”
“The findings were published today in Nature Communications by researchers from Oregon State University, Boston College and other institutions. They erase some of the uncertainties about glacial melting that had been due to a misinterpretation of data from some of these boulders, which were exposed to the atmosphere more than 11,500 years ago.

“This shows that at the end of the last Ice Age, it was only the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that could have caused the loss of glaciers around the world at the same time,” said Peter Clark, a professor in the OSU College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, and co-author on the study.”

Abel Adamski

Another article from ScienceCodex (A lot of very good articles – a few hours reading)http://www.sciencecodex.com/earth_orbit_changes_key_to_antarctic_warming_that_ended_last_ice_age-117606
“He noted that the warming in West Antarctica 20,000 years ago is not explained by a change in the sun’s intensity. Instead, how the sun’s energy was distributed over the region was a much bigger factor. It not only warmed the ice sheet but also warmed the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica, particularly during summer months when more sea ice melting could take place.

Changes in Earth’s orbit today are not an important factor in the rapid warming that has been observed recently, he added.

“Earth’s orbit changes on the scale of thousands of years, but carbon dioxide today is changing on the scale of decades so climate change is happening much faster today,” Fudge said.”

Abel Adamski

“The ice core showed the Northern Hemisphere briefly emerged from the last ice age some 14,700 years ago with a 22-degree-Fahrenheit spike in just 50 years, then plunged back into icy conditions before abruptly warming again about 11,700 years ago. Startlingly, the Greenland ice core evidence showed that a massive “reorganization” of atmospheric circulation in the Northern Hemisphere coincided with each temperature spurt, with each reorganization taking just one or two years, said the study authors. “

For the Greenland area, they confirm a 10+K change in temperature in 1-3 years, followed by a 10+K change in temperature in 60 years, and suggest, according to the abstract, “A northern shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone could be the trigger of these abrupt shifts of Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation.”

Griffin

Sometimes I read of these SSTA’s, and I am just stunned. The anomaly is huge, the area covered is mind-boggling. Robert, as a surfer, you know what a few degrees warmer water feels like. These anomalies are way beyond a subtle change of a few degrees. This is like no-wetsuit-freak-water in a place (PNW) where that should never happen. It is no wonder that so much of the sea life is dying from toxins.

It is mind-bogglingly hot. Looks like wetsuit free water all over the place.

Also, Griff, in your neck of the woods looks like the head of the Gulf Stream off Nantucket is sitting in 85 degree F (29.2 C) water. That’s just outrageous. A +6.6 C anomaly in summer time. Sea surface heights are huge. The stream is backing up, piling up water, and heating up off the US East Coast. The GoM itself is in the +1 to +3 C range with some SSTs approaching 33 C.

Yeah. I looked at the SSTA’s in southern Maine today and decided that the family is off to the beach sometime in the next week. I mean, when Maine water gets to parity with what I grew up with in Southern California, then it really is time to get in the water. Problem is, with the GOM fished out and the warmer water driving lobsters north, the economic consequences for the coast are severe.

Andy in SD

“Our Monster El Nino and three hot blobs — one off California, one off the Pacific Northwest, and one in the Bering and Chukchi”

To me it looks like a Monster El Nino and one huge blobs with 2 interruptions. The PNW blob has grown a lot this past year and is now on the coast. It is almost connected to the California blob now as well.

It is as if these things are turning into one large ocean surface feature, and under the surface perhaps they already are.

rayduray

I’ve found this to be a useful tool to get the “big picture” on ENSO events. The averaging across three month periods seems wise to me, considering that there’s always some wiggle in the measurement of SSTs across the various El Nino regions from South America to 160 E. Lat.

The current reading 2015 May/June/July is +1.0 C. above neutral conditions. This matches the temperature in the 1997-8 El Nino event and was only exceeded once in the record (back to 1950) when the 1987 MJJ was recorded at +1.1 C. After which the 1987 El Nino remained moderate for several more recording periods.

According to this ONI record, the greatest 3-month running SST El Nino anomaly was +2.3 C. recorded consecutively in 1997 OND and 1997-8 NDJ.

Could happen if this trend continues and if this thing follows the path of a traditional El Nino. We could see the Nino zone near or above 1997 but with this huge swath of the NE Pacific also involved as Andy notes above. The most likely range looks like 1.7 to 2.6 C in the seasonal anomaly.

JoeT

Recently I was plotting the Nino3.4 anomalies since 1990 that one can find over at the NOAA web site: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/data/indices/wksst8110.for
It’s interesting to see that the index really does peak at the end of the year. Hence the whole baby Jesus thing. This is after all why it’s called El Nino. What is it about the seasonal air/ocean dynamics that leads to flattening of the index around the end of the year and a decrease in the anomaly from that point? I’ve tried to ask this question at the ENSO blog, but they couldn’t give me an answer.

The plug of above normal upper ocean temperatures prevents atmosphere to ocean heat transfer and feeds back to further warm the surface zone. Usually, a gradient develops which results in storm generation. Over a season or two this storm generation, through Ekman and atmospheric forces eventually exhausts the hot pool — transferring the heat northward in the form of storm energy in the mid and upper latitudes.

Timing for El Nino is such that atmospheric ocean tendencies are to develop WWB and warm Kelvin waves during springtime. If the Kelvin waves are powerful enough they over-ride the tendency of the Equatorial Pacific to cool at the surface due to an interruption of the trades through summer and on into September and October. The result is a generation of a cooling lag that peaks out during October, November and December.

At that time, the storm energy feedback really kicks in and you, traditionally, see the heat energy dredged up by storms near the equator and hurled northward. That storm energy often ends up feeding the west to east Pacific Storm track at the mid latitudes — which is one of the reasons we saw such strong systems slamming into the US West Coast during past El Ninos.

Now, the storm energy conveyor appears to be aimed more northward. This is due to severe ocean heating all throughout the Northeast Pacific which would tend to dump the heat energy into the zone off Japan to Hawaii and on up through the Bering and Alaska. This physical aspect is problematic as it provides a lesser means of heat disappation from the Equatorial zone.

Physically, we’d eventually hope to see the hot blobs fall out a bit and the El Nino to mid-latitude storm track ramp up in the energy dissipation time period of January to April. Otherwise, we get these storms rolling out through the zone indicated above.

JoeT

redskylite

When I first became interested in Climate Science I started by following Judith Curry’s Climate etc blog, even not being educated in the science I felt something was wrong, was it a Stadium Wave theory ? I have read .earlier papers that she has co-authored and her early stuff seems straight

How do you explain Judith Curry?

”
How do you explain Judith Curry?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 20, 2015
(28)
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Climate change deniers are always trying to make the graphs go down. The graphs do not cooperate.
Climate change deniers are always trying to make the graphs go down. The graphs do not cooperate.

How do you explain a person seemingly legitimately trained in science drifting off and becoming more and more of a science denier?

In the case of Judith Curry I was unwilling to think of her as a full on science denier for a long time because her transition into denierhood seemed to be going very slowly, methodologically. It was almost like she was trying to drift over into denier land and maybe bring a few back with her. Like some people seem to do sometimes. But no, she just kept providing more and more evidence that she does not accept climate science’s concensus that global warming is real, caused by human greenhouse gas polution, involves actual warming of the Earth’s surface, and is important.

And lately she has added to this slippery sliding jello-like set of magic goal posts yet another denier meme. She is certain, after a convoluted review of “evidence” that one of the classic examples of deniers lying, deniers making stuff up to confuse and mislead policy makers, reporters, and the public, is real. ”

Early stuff was reputed to be straight, but there has been a strong drift toward denierism recently, as Greg Laden’s blog indicates. I believe there is some consulting $ involved, and some have speculated she is angling for a science post in a GOP Administration, which also seems plausible.

Bill H

Wow, finding out about AGW through “Climate etc.” must have been an “interesting” experience. Prof Curry’s mental gymnastics are incredible. A particularly striking example is described by Eli Rabett in http://rabett.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/curry-vs-curry.html . Here Curry, testifying before the US Congress, is claiming that increased Antarctic sea ice undermines the IPCC’s position. Yet in 2010 Curry actually published a paper saying that increased sea ice is to be expected from global warming due to the nature of the hydrological cycle in that part of the world, so it would be completely in accord with the IPCC’s position

A case of Curry denying her own research for the benefit of a bunch of right-wing politicians!!

Curry, Spencer and a few others seem to have been wagged by fossil fuel funding. The issue is not as bad as with scientific reviews of energy sources or the impact of pollution. But it’s the same phenomena. Industry funding and platform support pre-determines the outcome of such ‘science.’ I’d call it vanity science.

Bill H

With Curry there also seems to be a substantial dose of personal animosity. I met her along with Goddard, McIntyre, McKittrick and a number of other “skeptics” at a rather strange conference on “Reconciliation in the Climate Change Debate” at Lisbon back in 2011 when her voyage to the wilder shores of AGW theory contrarianism was at a relatively early stage. She already had a sizeable chip on her shoulder then about a number of prominent climate scientists, notably Trenberth and Schmidt.

Oh, and the conference itself has now been consigned to well-deserved obscurity.

cowpoke

Article from two days ago on the proposed trans-Nicaragua canal – the project seems to have stalled. Lake Nicaragua could experience a reprieve:

China’s Building a Huge Canal in Nicaragua, But We Couldn’t Find It

Deep on the southeastern side of Lake Nicaragua, along a bumpy dirt road that climbs gently through lush-green forest, sits the tiny town of El Tule. It is quintessential rural Central America: Chickens roam outside tin-roofed homes while pigs stand tied to trees, awaiting slaughter; the sound of drunk locals singing along to ranchera music greeted visitors on a recent weekend afternoon.

The village, if you listen to Nicaraguan officials, is a key point in what will be the biggest infrastructure project the region has ever seen, the construction of a $50 billion canal slated to run 170 miles from the country’s east to west coast. Awarded two years ago by President Daniel Ortega to an obscure Chinese businessman named Wang Jing, the concession calls for El Tule to be ripped up, erased essentially, in order to make way for the canal right before it plunges into the lake and then meets the Pacific Ocean a few miles later.

The idea is that the waterway will attract many of the larger vessels that the Panama Canal — located just 300 miles to the southeast — has historically struggled to accommodate. A construction deadline of 2020 has been set. Yet a four-day tour through El Tule and surrounding areas slated for crucial initial development only seemed to corroborate the belief, harbored by many analysts inside and outside Nicaragua, that this project isn’t going to get done …

The heat in the Pacific is unbelievable. From the equator to the Arctic. It makes me wonder if we’re approaching kind of tipping point, into a permanent El Niño type situation due to the accumulation of heat in the oceans. I picture La Niña cycles transforming from what was once cool waters to merely “normal” temps, and El Niños becoming ever warmer.

IF this El Niño fails to dislodge The Blob and RRR, and the features continue as a permanent aspect of North American meteorological dynamics, at what point can we say that our climate has officialy changed? When does a set of conditions reach a point where it is no longer appropriate to describe them as anomilies or unusual? I know 30 years is the benchmark for shifting from “weather” to “climate”, but it seems to me that we’ve rapidly transitioned into a much altered state.

Mark from New England

Absolutely. Well put. If California and the PNW don’t get drought relief this coming winter and spring, I hope that has the pundits scratching their heads asking why. Then they should come find this blog!

Climate change has been ongoing and relatively gradual since the early 19th Century. You could probably label 1970-1980 as the period when rapid climate change began to ramp up. What we are seeing now in the North American West and in the Northeast Pacific is a wrenching toward climate states not seen in at least centuries and probably millennia. The pace of change and the size of the energy imbalance itself is an aspect of that transition. So there may be no direct corollary that fits our current perspective.

I remember the bitterly cold winters of the late 1970s in New England (worse than the Michigan winters I went through in the early 70s as a preteen) and the freeze of 1983 which went all the way to Florida. People were talking “ice age” back then. Then I found and read a thick novel called Bellona which described a globally warming world ending up with Hell (tropical heat & humidity & 6 hurricanes a year) in New York City.

Colorado Bob

Satellite imagery and modelling revealed that the drought, caused by prolonged rainfall shortage since April, had already affected soil moisture content and vegetation conditions in June. Furthermore, the areas with the largest rainfall deficits also recorded exceptionally high maximum daily temperatures: in some cases these reached record values.

Another characteristic of this period was the persistence of the thermal anomalies: in the entire Mediterranean region, and particularly in Spain, the heat wave was even longer than that of 2003, with maximum daily temperatures consistently above 30°C for durations of 30 to 35 days (even more than 40 days in Spain).

PlazaRed

Bob, I think our temps in the Seville area have been above 30/C for probably about 80 days now , since June. There may have been the odd day when they dropped below 30/C.
The heat has not been as bad as 2003 but it has been stretched over a much longer period.
The max I have positively noted in my village at an height of about 2000 feet, or 630 metres was 42/C but some areas like Cordoba have been up to 45/C+
A lot of thunder storms flooding has been occurring in the north east of Spain around the Valencia to Barcelona areas.

SAL ( Saharan air layer,) has been a big problem as well covering everything in pink dust.

Good analysis, Robert.
I also see that Hurricane Danny is heading E out of the very warm waters of the C PAC — towards a drought stricken Puerto Rico.
It looks like another drought to deluge event is in the making.
-Exiting times, indeed.

President Barack Obama has signed an emergency declaration authorizing federal help for the massive wildfires burning out of control in Washington state.

Obama on Friday declared an emergency and authorized the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

The order covers 11 counties in central and eastern Washington as well as the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, the Spokane Tribe of Indians, and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakima Nation.

The wildfires have not ceased in their relentless threat against communities as they burned overnight, devouring the landscape
#
Ps Wildfires are a part of nature’s balancing act — but we have thrown it completely out of balance.
– Pulaskis (tool for cutting fire lines) and walkie talkies on the ground.
OR
“Mr. President, I listened closely to the last two Presidential Debates. You were there but I did not hear one mention of the words, ‘climate change’.”

Photo credit: A firefighter uses a radio to give instructions to a helicopter pilot on where to make a water dump on a fire Thursday, Aug. 20, 2015, in Twisp, Wash. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)
Photo by Elaine Thompson

While the Twisp fire because of the death of 3 firefighters garners the headlines, the number of fires burning around Omak, WA is astonishing. Looking at the Global Forest Watch map there are an untold number of fires to the east of Omak in the Coville Indian Reservation, and to the north and west of Omak. About the only areas not lit up is the Okanogan River and downtown Omak.

Forgive me, but I drove thru these areas this past spring, as well Twisp, on my way over the North Cascade Highway (Rte. 20) on April 3rd, a full month ahead of when this route opens due to the lack of snow that normally keeps the highway closed. And while crossing the highway peaks the snowfall along the highway was only about 4 to 5 feet deep.

What I’m wondering is when will these sort of infernal blazes stop being just about the tragic firefighter’s deaths, but as a clear and present set of smoke signals that FF extraction and burning is going to kill a lot more of us the longer it is ignored for what it is.

James Burton

Harper! That man is an absolute slave to the fossil fuel industry. He is the driving force behind Canadian Tar Sands as Canada’s future. What more can you say about him? Oh, that given Canada’s political system he has always been voted for by a minority of Canadians.

climatehawk1

James Burton

” Unlike typical El Ninos, the high heat anomalies are not isolated to a band along the Equator. They extend upward across a vast pool that encompasses practically all of the Northeastern and North-Central Pacific.”
So I assume these conditions mark this El Nino out as the first really large “Global Warming influenced El Nino”. The conditions we used to expect from the typical El Nino event are no longer what we can look for, but instead, we now face totally new conditions and effects when El Nino comes to call. Global Warming has now changed our world in a significant way, the old rules are out the window, and the new rules are yet to be written.

PlazaRed

There could just be a significant possibility that the global warming influenced, or at least helped with the forming of this El Nino.
All this extra heat in the Pacific is not just going to go away, its got to be absorbed into something and transferred somewhere.

James Burton

Washington State seems to be nearing a level of panic, as regards the intractable fires there today!
And over in Europe, parts of France and Spain, even up to the UK are experiencing a taste of the Sahara Desert, in what they call a ‘Spanish Plume’. Heat maps showing the Sahara like conditions in significant parts of Spain, and Southern France.
Tornado warnings going up for the west of the UK tomorrow.
Our Global Warming World!

Still no mention of Climate Change / Global Warming / RRR / the Blob / Jet Stream major shift, etc. in local media.
And the freakout is on top of local shellfish troubles, a big business here. Spawn can’t make shells in our acidic water so they’re being hatched in Hawaii! Several large sections of Puget Sound are closed for shellfish harvesting due to toxic algae. There are predictions of low snowpack in the mountains which would cause power shortages, salmon deaths, and water rationing next summer.

Still no mention of global warming in local media….

And Seattle was supposed to get “climate refugees” from across the country because we’d be more cool and damp than the rest of the country.

Re climate refugees, just confirms what I’ve been thinking for a while. Makes sense to think about moving north, but there is really no way to guess in advance what the impact of climate disruption in a specific area is going to be–it’s a crap shoot. Right now the NE U.S. is looking pretty good, but in five years, who’s to say?

My moving to Maine (from Hong Kong, in 2001) had nothing to do with CC considerations, but after seeing the NCAR long-term drought projection maps, I was glad I moved to a more-or-less resilient place. Take a look at the NCAR 2030-2039 map and you will dismiss all of the western US as a livable place, including Seattle. Of course, it is just a projection, but we keep getting closer and closer to that projection….

“The leaks are potentially explosive, kill trees, harm human health, and release an extraordinarily destructive greenhouse gas,” said Audrey Schulman, president of the Home Energy Efficiency Team, a Cambridge nonprofit that mapped the leak data submitted by the utilities. “To add insult to injury, we ratepayers have to pay for the lost gas.”

The data show that Cohasset has more leaks per household that uses gas than any other municipality in Massachusetts, while Weymouth has more leaks than any other town when measured by the amount of streets.

It didn’t look good. Dark sapphire pools dotted the bare gray peaks of the Sierras, ringed in too many concentric circles of sediment to count. As I flew above the mountains with NASA scientists on a tricked-out DC-8 plane, the effects of four years of drought were painfully evident to the naked eye. But it’s what we couldn’t see that we were here to study.

For a week this summer, NASA’s flying laboratory did loops over California as part of the Student Airborne Research Program, known as SARP. Students from all over the country work closely with the agency to collect data to study topics from industrial pollution to the health of local forests.

– Tianjin, China — The Undeniable Power of Physics and Chemistry — Off topic but relevant to corrupt decision making that endangers the public, especially in relation to industry propelled climate change. FF exports to China has the PNW salivating to do busine$$. The huge crater! The casualties!

The Guardian:

‘Drone footage has captured the aftermath of the disastrous Tianjin warehouse blasts, which happened on August 12. Local firefighters sent out drones five hours after the blast happened to monitor the spreading of fire at the site. The footage shows a huge crater and heavy smoke at the blast site, which was a logistics warehouse for chemicals near the Tianjin port’

– What strikes me, in this wildfire smoke photo of CA, is how lazy the the winds over the water are. There should strong and somewhat brisk N N/W winds blowing down the coast and inland a bit. There is none.

space.com
An image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite on Aug. 17, 2015, shows five large fires raging through an area in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, located west of Redding, California. To the north are two additional fires, just south of the Oregon state line.

Note: These western most fires, because of climate change, are not getting their historical marine influenced weather. So, or very little, cool moist air is going inland. And so, these robust infernos have the run of the place — and the hot dry inland winds are proving less predictable.

Griffin

– It looks like all the weather energy is farther out to sea in warm water and heading towards the Arctic as Robert reports.
– What with the loss of a cold Arctic sending cool wet weather south, a bit of a vacuum has been created up there — and we know how Nature dislikes vacuums. 🙂

– Note: These western most fires, because of climate change, are not getting their historical marine influenced weather. So, or very little, cool moist air is going inland. And so, these robust infernos have the run of the place — and the hot dry inland winds are proving less predictable.
– Some close in POVs in the midst of the US West wildfire behaviors:

CNN
Gov. Jay Inslee painted a dire picture as more than 100 wildfires roared throughout Washington state Thursday, a day after three firefighters were killed in one fire.
“I want to say this is an unprecedented cataclysm in our state,” Inslee said.
#
“We anticipate the fire weather today will be worse than it was yesterday,” wildfire incident commander Chris Schulte said Thursday. “We should have more rate of spread and more acreage burned than yesterday.”
#
Three firefighters who set out to battle the Twisp Fire on Wednesday fell victim to bad luck and died in the flames. The wildfire scorching a rural county in Washington was unpredictable and fast, an inferno that was hard to dodge.
“It was a hell storm up here,” Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers told CNN affiliate KXLY, standing not far from the flames. “The fire was racing and the winds were blowing in every direction, and then they would shift.”
The firefighters were on an “initial attack” operation when they had a vehicle accident. Rogers said the flames then overtook them.
#
About 200 active duty military personnel will help fight the wildfires in seven Western state…
The extreme fire danger, however, is delaying their deployment to the fires.
“The fire agencies are concerned that these fires could blow into extreme fire behavior. And that creates a situation where we have to think twice about where we put the military crews,”
wqad.com/2015/08/21

Colorado Bob

redskylite

I applaud this lady for giving up a good career and starting a museum, which she believes will plug a gap in educating the public…….

Groups and research centers such as 350.org, the Natural Resources Defense Council and Columbia University’s Earth Institute are doing groundbreaking work, Ms. Massie said. What is lacking, she argued, is a broad effort to educate the public.

redskylite

Warm, calm waters are especially favorable for the lake’s most common species of toxic cyanobacteria—bacteria that photosynthesize like plants. In response to one or more currently unknown environmental cues, the cyanobacteria turn on genes that allow them to churn out toxins that can be fatal to wildlife, pets, and people in certain doses.

For those who are interested, actually the chloroplasts found in plants that are responsible for plant photosynthesis are endosymbiotic in origin, once existing as free-roaming bacteria but are now organelles found inside plant cells, and their common ancestor isn’t simply closely related to cyanobacteria, as previously thought, but is more closely related to some species of cyanobacteria than some species of cyanobacteria are related to other species of cyanobacteria.

From the abstract or a 2010 Nature paper:

We found that chloroplasts form a monophyletic lineage, are most closely related to subsection-I, N2-fixing unicellular cyanobacteria (Order Chroococcales), and heterocyst-forming Order Nostocales cyanobacteria are their sister group.

redskylite

“The records are getting attention but I worry the public will grow weary of reports of new records each month,” Shepherd said in an email. “I am more concerned about how the Earth is starting to respond to the changes and the implications for my children.”

redskylite

Germany experienced its hottest day since records began whilst in France, thousands lost power as high temperatures causing electrical equipment to malfunction.

Professor Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute told RTCC: “There is clearly a systematic increase in heat extremes and the logical cause is global warming.”

When asked whether this year’s heat could be the result of the current El Nino, he said: “If we look at temperatures between 1950 and 1980, there is nothing close to the extreme heat of today, regardless of El Nino, so the effect of global warming is larger.”

Andy in SD

Perhaps the ability to act as a heat sink is reducing within the oceans as has been considered as a possible future event.

As heat loads into the oceans, their ability to consume more heat is reduced thereby leaving it in the atmosphere. This has been postulated by some folks as a potential occurrence. The oceans have absorbed the lions share of the excess energy for quite some time.

There doesn’t seem to be an anomalous smoking gun that sticks out as a source that I am aware of. That of course just means that I am not aware of it!

I listened to an interview today with Michael Mann and John Richardson(author of the Esquire piece on climate scientists).

Much(all?) of what they discussed people here are already aware of— 2 things stood out for me.

1) Mann emphasized that the “poster child” for the general public re: climate change needs to change to the human face instead of wildlife in order for people to realize the seriousness.

2) In Mann’s and Richardson’s opinion, Wisconsin Gov Walker( local indie Madison radio station did the interview) and his attack on university tenure is part of the Koch strategy to further silence climate scientists. And that Walker has already fired dozens(yes, plural) of scientists who worked at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources….Mann personally knows many of them….this I had not known.

3) When asked if we’d reached a tipping point, Mann said that there are many tipping points. And for sure a major tipping point we’ve crossed is the warming/melt/collapse down in Antarctica. His voice transitioned from dispassionate, pleasant scientist to emotional, “this is serious.”

redskylite

Suzanne

Maria…Just listened to the interview you posted. Thanks.
For any here who have missed the article in Esquire, which has now gotten 8 million hits..here it is: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36228/ballad-of-the-sad-climatologists-0815/
I think one of the reasons this article has resonated with so many is because the article puts a human face on the issue of climate change. You would have to have a heart of steel to not recognize the anger, angst and frustration these scientists are facing in getting their work heard. I truly can only “hope” that articles and others like this will help to shift the “global consciousness” so that real, decisive action can be taken to tackle this catastrophe in the making. Again, thanks for the link to the interview! 🙂

Thanks Skylight and Suzanne. I’m glad you found it as interesting/helpful as I did. The firing of the scientists really got to me. It hearkened memories of my dad’s stories of how the dictator of his country of origin(Albania) systematically removed people that were perceived as threats. My father was on his hit list. Blatant violence was used but I perceive this as a covert, pernicious kind of violence.

Suzanne—the Esquire piece was pivotal to my digging as deep as I can into this issue.

Colorado Bob

Vic

Australia’s previous foreign minister Bob Carr pledged three million dollars from Australia’s international aid budget to the World Wildlife Fund in an effort to help save the Sumatran Rhinoceros from extinction. Just weeks after being elected however, the Abbott government reneged on the promise and withdrew funding.

“That’s a lovely a project for the World Wildlife Foundation (sic) but not for the Australian government aid budget,”

This is the same Abbott government who was able to find $100 million to spend on a new war memorial in France and spent another $100 million searching the wrong part of the Indian Ocean for the lost MH370 plane.
The same Abbott government who are currently trying to rewrite Australian environmental laws so that green groups can no longer access law courts to challenge mining companies.

Colorado Bob

Heat, at near new records for August, is oozing out. In the Nino 3.4 zone last week, the heat bleed hit a new intensity of + 2 degrees Celsius above average. That puts our current El Nino easily in the running for one of the top three strongest.

If not the climatologists, the models at least are suggesting this El Niño may take first place:

Colorado State meteorologist Phil Klotzbach plotted the 1997-1998 El Niño on top of the most recent forecast, showing how the model average – in yellow below – is warmer than the previous record El Niño all the way through spring of next year. It’s close, and only slightly stronger – but it’s a big change compared to forecasts from recent months.

According to Jan Null peak of dynamic model mean Oceanic Nino Index for mid-August runs is 0.3 higher than mid-July runs and slightly warmer than 1997. IRI meteorlogist Tony Barnston still cautions that this El Niño will be slightly weaker.

redskylite

“For the first time, the company received bids for utility-scale solar PV resources that are cost-effective head to head with natural-gas fired generation,” Public Service of Colorado said in the report.

Abel Adamski

“West Texas “is flat, the land is open, available and cheap and there is a lot of sun” said Raiford Smith, vice president of corporate planning for CPS Energy, a city-owned utility in San Antonio. “It is an ideal place for putting solar.”

Another reason for the boom: Texas recently wrapped up construction of $6.9 billion worth of new transmission lines, many connecting West Texas to the state’s large cities. These massive power lines enabled Texas to become, by far, the largest U.S. wind producer.

Solar developers plan to move electricity on the same lines, taking advantage of a lull in wind generation during the heat of the day when solar output is at its highest.”

Abel Adamski

Trouble is so polluted, all that dust and grime on the roof and in the gutters, use mine as grey water for washing car end outside windows etc and watering shrubs, flower garden etc.
Ok to collect as rainwater after an hour or so once the grot is gone and the air has been given a wash

redskylite

This photo of dead fish near Tianjin shocked me, and the authorities are trying to blame it on low oxygen.. man we treat our co-inhabitants meanly, and ourseves if we are allowing people to drink the water..

Thousands of dead fish have washed up on the shore of a river near Tianjin, a day after authorities declared drinking water was safe following last week’s blasts at a warehouse containing explosive and dangerous goods.
Tianjin officials have attempted to reassure the public saying that the dead fish were caused by regular seasonal low oxygen levels in the water and were not related to the blasts.

The state-owned China Central Television also reported that tests found no significant presence of cyanide in that section of the river.

Abel Adamski

Ecuador’s Cotopaxi volcano has this week roared back into life, delivering its first significant eruption in more than 70 years and raining ash down on the capital Quito, 50 kilometres away.

Now there are fears that pyroclastic rock and gas flows could melt the ice on the glacier-capped peak and flood nearby towns with volcanic mud.

The last time that happened was in 1877, with fatal results.

Over the past week, Cotopaxi, one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, has continued to deliver smaller eruptions, with the government confirming another eruption this morning local time.

“Cotopaxi is considered one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes due to its proximity to population centres and very explosive activity, coupled with a tremendous potential for devastating volcanic mudflows, called lahars, which are formed by rapid melting of the icecap,” the University of Bristol’s Dr Jo Gottsmann said.

“A large lahar generated by the 1877 eruption travelled over 326 kilometres to the Pacific coast. Along its path lies the Valle de Los Chillos, which nowadays sees more than 200,000 people living along the lahar channels.”

From the Earthweek blog
“The country’s Ministry of Security Coordination is the only authorized source to distribute information on the volcano under a “preventative censorship” decree issued by the government.

President Rafael Correa defended the move as necessary to avoid false rumors that could trigger panic.”

redskylite

Jack in Utah

“1st US tar sands mine set to open for business in Utah: Book Cliffs • On a remote Utah ridge covered in sagebrush, pines and wild grasses, a Canadian company is about to embark on something never before done commercially in the United States: digging sticky, black, tar-soaked sand from the ground and extracting the petroleum. U.S. Oil Sands has invested nearly $100 million over the last decade to acquire rights to about 50 square miles, obtain permits and develop what it says is a brand-new, non-toxic method of separating out the oil with the use of an orange-peel extract similar to what’s in citrus-scented household soaps and detergents… about 165 miles from Salt Lake City, the company plans this fall to begin digging the first in a series of pits, each the size of a football stadium, and start unsticking oil from the sand that crumbles in your hand like a brownie…By the company’s own estimate, it will make little to nothing at crude oil’s current price of $48 per barrel, down from a peak of $147 in 2008. As of Tuesday, U.S. Oil Sands stock was trading at just 12 cents…A 45-mile, $86 million highway as smooth as an autobahn has been built out to the mine. And the state has given approval for three other tar sands operations in the same corner of Utah…Utah officials who recently approved the mine also imposed a key requirement environmentalists considered a victory: The company must monitor water and air quality.”

Suzanne

I know it is easy to look at some futuristic movies, such as “Mad Max” , “Water World”, and relate them to what could happen to our world if action is not taken to immediately address GW. But for those of you here old enough, I was thinking today of a movie I saw in 1973 when I was a teenager and how that movie may, unfortunately, be an even more accurate, realistic glimpse into our future if our world does not take decisive action now to thwart GW. That movie is “Soylent Green”. For those who have never heard of or seen “Soylent Green” it takes place in a world in the early 21st century …where overpopulation and overuse of resources has led to increasing poverty, food shortages, and social disorder and where most animals are extinct and the weather is perpetually summer. Of course, the “elite” still live in luxury…taking advantage of the limited resources that are left to pillage. I won’t spoil the ending, but let’s just suffice it to say an industrious capitalist finds a way to utilize the last and most abundant resource…humans.

I wonder if someone in the movie industry who is “awake” to the current GW crisis could make a updated version of this movie that might help to shake people out of their denial?
Just a thought.

I googled “Soylent Green remake” and it is apparently an idea that has been in the air for a few years now.

“The Crazies” (1973) was a film that got remade in 2010. The theme of that film strikes me as analogous to the situation of present day migrants fleeing a war zone, but treated as the enemy by their target countries of refuge.

Soylent Green is a great movie (I wasn’t born until 1981, but have seen it and love it) and very relevant to today. Since its release, the problems addressed in the movie have only gotten worse. I think a updated version is overdue.

PlazaRed

The new forecast has Goni bottled up in the Sea of Japan with Atsani stalling south of the Aleutians. Looks like the block extends west and just keeps these things bottled up for the next ten days. Some retrograde motion even. The long range forecast is highly variable and subject to change. Will definitely keep an eye on it.

PlazaRed

Still a month of winter to go in the Antarctic regions until the first day of their spring about 21st September.
Not even any sunny daylight at the most southerly latitudes yet.
Then we get an image of the ice growth, or rather lack of it as of 21st of August.
Sea ice running along now with no daily increase, If spring starts with this situation then massive melting may result and some of this ice is not floating to start with, so its an addition to the sea level rise.
I’m thinking that we might see this sort of “non ice forming,” in the Arctic soon.

Andy in YKD

PlazaRed

An interesting chart and its just not normal by any stretch of anybody’s imagination.
I am imagining what it will look like in about 3 months from now and it seems impossible to me that there will be a sudden rise in ice cover.
2014 had about 16 million sq kilometres of ice at this point rising to almost 17 million at its peak.
2015, as of 21 August has according to the chart around 14 million sq kilometres, so we are 2 million down on last year at this time.
If that yellow line continues along its path, then it could be the lowest ice level ever recorded in Antarctica soon!
What’s very important, is that any ice which melts which is grounded or on the land mass raises the sea levels, this is not like sea ice melting in the Arctic.
I find it really strange that very few people seem to have noticed this anomaly.

I cant find a way to embed the chart you linked too, maybe its because its interactive but the link takes you straight too it anyway.

I think the first image of a substantially ice free arctic will be enormously effective in establishing a baseline for a worldwide consciousness of the seriousness of the problem.

Almost nobody experiences the arctic directly, and unfortunately millions of people will not be capable of relating cause to effect, even when the waters are lapping at their feet, (or the rains have ceased).

Smoke from wildfires burning in eastern and central Oregon now covers Metro Portland. Wind is ENE at 18 mph.
The pollution from the smoke as it mixes with the local air is at unhealthy levels.
See graphic:
I have my N95 particulate mask on. All east facing windows are closed.
Will post photos soon.

Griffin

Thanks Griffin,
I usually put the mask over just my nose to breath in — and then exhale through my mouth.
Much less claustrophobia this way.
I feel for the animals and plants without a means of defense.

redskylite

A top Canadian meteorologist warns that municipalities aren’t prepared to deal with the impacts of an increasingly volatile climate that can bring devastating floods one season and a drought the next.

In the last five years, Canadian cities have been buried in record-breaking snowfall, scorched by unprecedented wildfires, blasted by tornadoes, hurricanes and lightning strikes, limping from one natural disaster to the next as the bills for emergency repairs climb.

– This applies to all of USA too — and in all Public Safety segments who are vastly unprepared to the many nuances of mass sufferings that will surely take place.
– If they knew the full extent — or allowed to come to the forefront of their consciousness, they would rebel and demand that all preventative actions be taken ASAP. And with, or without the blessings of the many ‘Chambers of Commerce”.

– A CLIMATE EMERGENCY does indeed exist. As does an AIR POLLUTION EMERGENCY and an ATMOSPHERIC EMERGENCY.
– All of them — now, as I type.

redskylite

I’m sure most are sick and tired of hearing about the hiatus/pause, since David Rose’s cherry picked story in the Daily Mail launched it for the denial movement. Anyway here is the latest piece to grind it to dust and scatter in the wind.

From the environmentalresearchweb:

Has global warming come to a halt recently? The steep climb in average global temperature observed since the 1970s appears to have levelled off somewhat since the millennium, causing some to question whether climate change is really happening. But appearances can be deceptive. A new statistical analysis of global temperature data shows that the so-called hiatus is not statistically justifiable, and that the recent plateau cannot be interpreted as a pause in global warming.

labmonkey2

She is ‘literally’ – nucking futz. I’d like to see at least one of the debates have a scientist or two – or at lest some real-time fact checkers. Except of course, these folks don’t believe in facts or science. The trouble is that many people believe this tripe without question.

– Please understand that Ms. Fiorina is merely fulfilling her duty to be some sort of propaganda spokes-idiot, or spokes-liar, for the darker forces of the right wing fossil fuel and unsustainable business practices industry.
She has already publicly blamed ‘environmentalists’ for California’s ‘drought’ — even as the ground beneath was sinking due to agribusiness sucking the aquifers dry.
It’s a sad fact that she has voice to a very gullible public.
But she is just a ‘front’ person for others who will do us all great harm.

Andy in SD

Certain hotspots are shrinking at an astonishing rate — regions of the Tulare Basin, which includes Fresno, sank 13 inches (33 cm) in just eight months, they found. The Sacramento Valley is sinking about 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) per month. And the California Aqueduct — an intricate network of pipes, canals and tunnels that funnels water from high in the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern and central California to Southern California — has sunk 12.5 inches (32 cm), and most of that was just in the past four months, according to the new study.

Leland Palmer

Hi dtlange-
Yes, agrabusiness might have to take the hit, to shift water to the cities. Agriculture in California will have to change – more drip irrigation, less flood irrigation, I think.

So far, in Tulare, though, it’s the other way around. Hundreds of local poor people are totally without running water (it must be hauled in) while agricultural interests keep sucking up the aquifer. “This is not a sustainable situation” they say.

If the Ridiculously Resilient Ridge is related to the loss of Arctic sea ice, though – it’s a whole new ball game. El Nino might not save us.

PlazaRed

If you look at the top of Greenland now, its no longer connected to the other islands by ice.
The channels are just like canals with blocks of ice floating in them.
Greenland is a water surrounded island from a visual point of view now.

– FYI This past June, by the American Chemical Society honored Charles David Keeling’s Keeling Curve. I bow to it every day. 🙂 (Scripps Institution of Oceanography is outstanding too.)

‘The American Chemical Society will designate the Keeling Curve – a long-term record of rising carbon dioxide in the planet’s atmosphere – as a National Historic Chemical Landmark in a ceremony June 12 on the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego campus.

In March 1958, on a remote mountain slope at a newly established U.S. Weather Bureau observatory, the late Scripps geochemist Charles David Keeling began taking measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In the years that followed, the systematic measurements Keeling started have become the most widely recognized record of mankind’s impact on the earth, linking rising levels of carbon dioxide from human burning of fossil fuels to the warming of the planet. Keeling died in 2005.

The work of Charles David Keeling and the partnership that he formed with NOAA continue today. Keeling’s son Ralph Keeling now leads the Scripps CO2 Group. The Mauna Loa site is among 10 locations from the South Pole to Alaska at which air samples are regularly collected in flasks for analysis for the Scripps CO2 Group.

redskylite

We are already seeing the health impacts of climate change right here in Northeast Ohio, including the children we take care of in our practices: extreme precipitation events, extreme heat, longer and more intense allergy seasons, and worsened air quality. In our region, rates of asthma in kids are substantially higher than the national average.

In African American children, asthma rates are greater than one in five – more than double the national average.

Indeed, thanks for posting this..I did pedi ICU for years in Boston. They too have been speaking out, but, frankly, children are a low priority in every aspect of their lives. I like this quote by a Boston physician.

Fortunately, we still have hope. Says Dr. Bernstein, “If we successfully reduce the amount of greenhouse gases … we will achieve the single-greatest public health intervention ever realized—more impressive than vaccines, more impressive than antibiotics. And that’s because climate change affects health in pretty much every way you can imagine.”

redskylite

The shocking scenes came amid a warning from a senior politician that wildfires now pose the greatest threat to the lake, on the UNESCO World Heritage List, which contains 20% of the unfrozen freshwater on the planet.

Suzanne

Those pictures are so disturbing. It is painful looking at them because I am afraid unless we start taking decisive action now…these pictures of destruction may become the new “normal” for us all. Just heartbreaking…

Colorado Bob

Climate Progress owes its existence to Hurricane Katrina. But it is only a decade after Katrina that we have actually seen anything resembling genuine “progress on climate” in the world.

After my brother lost his Mississippi home in the Hurricane Katrina storm surge, he asked me for advice on whether or not he should rebuild there. I started interviewing climate experts, going to seminars, and reading the scientific literature for what ultimately turned into a book, “Hell and High Water” — and this blog.</em

Thanks Bob…I found this esp informing since I don’t follow the denier websites to any substantive degree:

One measure of climate progress, at least online, is that the websites that push climate-science denial have totally fizzled out on social media, despite considerable effort. Why? Science is inherently a social enterprise — an intrinsically interesting voyage of discovery in which scientists build on each others’ work toward a better and better understanding of the world around us. Denial, being anti-science, is in some sense an anti-social activity whose goal is to stop society from listening to the scientific community about the ever-growing risks to society posed by unrestricted emissions of carbon pollution. The deniers operate an inherently monotonous treadmill of anti-truth, misunderstanding, and disinformation that builds only toward nihilism. No wonder it bombs on social media.

They’re bombing because it’s all canned, astro-turfed crud. Because pretty much anyone with half a brain can see what’s going on out their back window. Because climate change denial is the political dogma of a class the relies on mental, spiritual, and physical wasting in order to assert its interests.

Colorado Bob

Colorado Bob

The image time series suggests that between 27 July and 13 August, the glacier advanced westward before the calving caused rapid retreat of the ice front to its position on 19 August.

It is estimated that the glacier lost a total area of 12.5 sq km. Assuming the ice is about 1400 m deep, this equates a volume of 17.5 cubic km %u2013 which could cover the whole of Manhattan Island by a layer of ice about 300 m thick.